At First Sight

Chapter 3: Beach

The rest of the holidays passed quickly. The house was temporarily overrun with Rachel’s friends and for a time, it felt like the clock had been turned back. But soon enough, she went back to school and my life returned to its normal routine. School during the days, homework at nights, and hanging out with Embry and Quil or working on the Rabbit on the weekends.

I had picked up a few of the parts that I needed at the dump. But the engine turned out to be entirely unsalvageable so I needed to save some serious cash to get a replacement. This put a big dent in my hopes to get the car done this summer. It also made my birthday more exciting since I was now 15 and legally able to work. I was hoping to land a steady gig in the spring once the tourists starting trickling back.

We hadn't seen much of Charlie either, which was quite a change. Bella had arrived in mid-January and Charlie spent most of his weekends at home with her. I think he was scared to leave her alone for fear that she'd find Forks too boring. We knew he was serious when he missed Harry's Superbowl party for the first time in 20 years.

He and Billy had also gotten into some silly argument over the phone. I gathered that it had something to do with Charlie finding out that the Quileutes weren’t going to the hospital in Forks anymore because of Dr. Cullen. Charlie didn’t understand the tribe’s dislike of Dr. Cullen and he told Billy that he was being unfair and prejudicial. I couldn’t have agreed more, but I figured it was smarter for me to keep my mouth shut.

Pretty soon, winter started to blur into spring. It was barely perceptible to the untrained eye. It certainly didn't stop raining or get much warmer, but the rain changed and became softer. Less harsh and more misty. When the first weekend in March rolled around, it brought with it the first glimmers of sun in weeks.

Quil and I were at the convenience shop where Embry's mom worked. Embry helped out there most weekends, stocking shelves, and cleaning up. His mother wasn't actually Quileute. She was a Makah from the reservation to the north, but she had moved down to La Push right after Embry was born. She had worked at this store for as long as I could remember and the three of us had spent much of our childhood here trying to sneak candy bars when she wasn’t looking.

Embry was tall and thin, just like his mother. Though he, Quil, and I were all close, I was probably just a little closer to Embry. He also knew what it was like to grow up without a parent. Though in his case, he had never actually met his father.

We finished restocking the fridge with soda, so I started flattening out boxes. Quil snagged a can and flipped open the top.

"You better be paying for that!" Embry said, coming in from the back room with some more boxes to unload.

"Come on man! I just helped you unpack here. Don’t I get something?" Quil complained as he adjusted the black wire-rimmed glasses that had slipped down his nose.

"My gratitude. And a 25% employee's discount. Pay up."

Grumbling, Quil dug into his pocket for change and made a face at me. I shrugged. I knew that if Embry didn't lay down the law, Quil would eat away all the profits at the store.

It wasn't that Quil was rude, he was just … Quil. He had the most normal family life out of the three of us. His dad ran the garage in town and his mother helped out during the summers when it got busy. His grandfather lived with them too. Old Quil was the oldest elder in the tribe. His hair was completely white and he seemed to shrink daily with age, but none of us were fooled. He was as tough and as sharp of an old man as you would ever meet. Billy may have been the brains and face of the tribe, but old Quil – not to be confused with Quil Sr. and Quil Jr. - was the heart.

Quil also had three younger sisters, who were the bane of his existence, precisely because they all adored him so much. Spending too much time with them ruined his "street cred" he claimed. Whatever that meant.

Just as I started fumbling in my pocket for change for a soda, the door opened and in came Sam. His hair was buzzed short, a novelty among the Quileute boys who, like me, generally let their hair grow long. It was mostly an issue of practicality because this way you didn’t need to cut it as often. The short almost army-buzzed haircut made Sam stand out.

That and the fact that he was also impossibly huge. Most of the Quileute men were big, but he was just abnormally big - probably 6'3" or 6’4” - and built up in a way that made me suspect steroid use. Not that I would have dared say that in front of Billy. He would probably just accuse me of being jealous of Sam’s good looks and muscles. And I was. Slightly. Not that I would ever admit it.

We greeted each other with a curt nod. Sam grabbed some snacks and flipped through the paper while Embry rang him up. I was surprised when he lingered after paying.

"How's it going, Jacob?"

"Good, not much going on."

I was confused. Sam was a few years older than me and we had never been friends. But lately, he was always watching me, paying attention to me, and talking to me whenever he had the chance. And I couldn't understand why. I wondered if he was trying to suck up to Billy through me. Clearly, he wasn't all that sharp if he thought that sucking up to me would get him anywhere.

"How's the Rabbit coming?" he asked with a smile.

Man, this was a small rez. It never ceased to amaze me how everybody knew everything about everyone.

"Good. Do you by any chance know where I could get a master cylinder?” I joked wryly.

Sam furrowed his brow. "No, but I'll ask around."

Wow, he was trying to suck up big time. I don’t know why he bothered. I was a nobody.

"So I was thinking of heading down to the beach. A bunch of kids from Forks showed up to surf. I thought I’d go check them out."

It was impossible not to miss the slightly territorial edge to his voice. I was thinking of a polite way to decline when Quil enthusiastically accepted for the two of us. Quil actually thought Sam was cool. I suspected it was because Quil still hadn't hit his growth spurt yet, so the 90-lb weakling in him thought that Sam and his muscles were just the coolest thing ever. Shrugging an apology to Embry who had to stay behind at the store, we walked out into the parking lot and down to the beach.

The weather was still pretty cold despite the sunlight peeking through the clouds. The lot was deserted except for a Sentra and a Suburban that had a Forks High School basketball sticker in the back window. We saw a group of kids huddled around a fire by the driftwood logs, so we headed that way. I caught the smell of hot dogs and my stomach growled. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea.

As we got closer, I could start making out distinct people. There was a girl sitting with her back to me with thick wavy shiny brown hair. I stumbled over my feet when it suddenly occurred to me that it could be her. Bella. Here in La Push. I stared eagerly at the girl but I grudgingly had to rule her out when I saw that she was almost six feet tall and wearing glasses. I also ruled out a snooty looking blonde as well as a peppy looking girl with light brown hair. Both were overly made-up and dressed far too fashionably.

But with a pang, I realized that I hadn't actually seen Bella in over five years - so for all I knew, she could be any of those girls. I looked more closely at them again but ruled them out this time based on their facial features. It was slightly ridiculous that I had even hoped that she might be here. There were hundreds of girls in Forks. What were the odds that she were on the beach at the same time that I was?

At that moment, a few La Push girls joined the party as well. I noticed that the tall girl with glasses seemed shy and uncomfortable making small talk. In fact, that was probably what made me think of Bella in the first place.

Quil introduced himself to the blonde and sat down right next to her, completely forgetting my existence. Subtlety was never his strong suit, but I wished sometimes that I had his guts. And his thick skin. Rejection never seemed to faze him.

Sam started chatting with a few of the guys, so I moved to stoke the fire which was sputtering from the humidity. The blue green driftwood flames were always mesmerizing to watch; no matter how many times I had seen them in the past.

I looked up as a group of boys made their way out of the trees in the distance, their fancy Gore-Tex rain jackets contrasting sharply against the vivid green terrain. Lagging far behind them was a girl in a dark maroon jacket with her hood completely up obscuring her face. She was only just making her way through the gap in the trees when the others reached the campfire. Something about the way she carried herself caught my eye.

She was slim and shapely - I could see that even from this distance - but she was almost delicate-looking. In fact, she seemed far too delicate-looking for the intensely rugged landscape of La Push, something that she clearly recognized about herself as she very carefully picked her path out of the forest. Once onto the edge of the beach, she noticeably relaxed and started walking more quickly towards us when suddenly she tripped - apparently over her own two feet since there was nothing but sand in sight – and narrowly escaped wiping out, when her hood fell down exposing masses of dark brown hair and an all-too-familiar face.

I laughed. It was Bella. And she hadn't changed. I don't know why I thought she would have, but Phoenix seemed such an alien place to me that I somehow expected her to have become blond and tanned by living there. But her hair and eyes were still the same warm chocolate-brown and her skin was still pale to the point of translucence.

I chuckled as I flashed back to memories of happy summer days spent on the beach while Charlie and Billy were fishing. I wondered if she would remember me. We had barely interacted back then aside from that one day of mud-pie-making. I remembered that she was painfully shy then - almost as shy as she was clumsy - and it seemed that not much had changed.

As she sat down next to the tall girl with the glasses, she looked over and caught me staring at her. I looked away quickly, feeling my cheeks grow hot in embarrassment. Damnit. Way to go, Jake. Real smooth. Why couldn't I have just said hi and introduced myself like any normal person?

"I'm Sam and this is Quil and Jacob."

I nodded my head as Sam said my name, lifting my gaze to meet Bella's curious eyes as she followed the introductions. I saw no flash of recognition whatsoever when Sam mentioned my name. Well that sucked. I guess I should have known that she wouldn’t have remembered me.

A guy wearing a Forks HS letterman jacket brought her some sandwiches and soda. His possessiveness was unmistakable. Boyfriend, maybe? That would be pretty fast work. She had only gotten to Forks a few weeks ago. Not that it was any of my business, I reminded myself.

But I couldn’t help the sigh of relief that flickered through me when I realized that he couldn’t be her boyfriend, since Bella didn’t seem the least interested in him. While he and the peppy brown-haired girl - who was most definitely interested in being his girlfriend- chatted away easily, Bella ate silently and almost methodically as she stared off at the crashing waves.

Not wanting to be caught looking at her again, I turned my attention to Quil and tried not to snicker as he grossly exaggerated both his exploits and his injuries from a recent dirt bike adventure to the snooty-looking blonde girl.

"It was sweet, man! We ended up taking this turn at like 75 and almost crashed into a tree!" Quil puffed out his chest with each word. A quick look at the blonde showed that she was clearly not impressed. Poor guy was wasting his time.

As lunch wrapped up, folks started to drift off. A few of the girls went for a walk downtown to check out the stores. Quil was engrossed in a heated debate with some guy over some baseball stats and Sam was sitting alone staring off into the distance. Clearly he had determined that these kids were no danger to the tribe. I scoffed. I could've told him that.

The guy who had fetched Bella's lunch got up to walk towards town, the peppy brown-haired girl tagging at his heels. He looked back wistfully at Bella but she wasn't paying attention to them at all, still staring off into the distance, lost in her thoughts. I figured that this was my chance.

I was suddenly ridiculously nervous. My palm were slick with sweat as I wracked my brain to come up with a way to introduce myself. I had had enough awkward conversations with girls to know that I couldn’t go in unprepared. I prayed silently that I wouldn’t say anything too stupid.

As I walked over to her, I examined her face closely to see if I could detect any big changes from the past few years. She had grown into her features, but she still had that same serious adult look about her that had set her apart even as a child. It made me chuckle, remembering how grown-up she had seemed compared to my sisters even then. She must have heard me chuckling softly to myself because she turned to look at me, her eyes wary and slightly annoyed.

"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?"

"Bella," she responded automatically. I smiled. I wasn't sure where Isabella had come from. Nerves I guess.

"I'm Jacob Black." I reached out to shake her hand before I could think. I had forgotten that my palms were still slightly sweaty.

She looked relieved as she reached out her hand. "Oh, you're Billy's son. I probably should remember you."

Ouch. Well I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

"No, I'm the youngest of the family — you would remember my older sisters." I smiled brightly, masking any signs of disappointment.

"Rachel and Rebecca,” she responded with a half-smile. "Are they here?" She turned to scan the La Push girls, seemingly anxious that she might have offended them by not recognizing them

"No. Rachel got a scholarship to Washington State, and Rebecca married a Samoan surfer — she lives in Hawaii now.”

"Married. Wow." She looked stunned. I was with her. I was still stunned that I had a sister who was married too.

"So how do you like the truck?" I asked, checking off the first box on my mental list of conversation topics.

"I love it. It runs great.” Her eyes lit up at the mention of the old Chevy.

"Yeah, but it's really slow. I was so relieved when Charlie bought it. My dad wouldn't let me work on building another car when we had a perfectly good vehicle right there." I laughed self-consciously hoping that she'd be semi-impressed that I had built it for her.

"It's not that slow," she frowned as she pouted slightly.

"Have you tried to go over sixty?"

"No,” she admitted with a sheepish expression.

"Good. Don't,” I joked with a teasing grin. She suddenly grinned back, the first time I had seen her smile all afternoon. I was mesmerized by it, the way it lit up her whole face.

"It does great in a collision," she conceded grudgingly.

"I don't think a tank could take out that old monster" I quipped which elicited an even bigger smile from her. I felt my stomach doing cartwheels inside me in response. But it was so easy to talk to her. It seemed absurd now that I had worried about what I would say.

"So you build cars?" she asked with a bright smile.

So she was impressed. I tried not to blush but failed miserably. "When I have free time and parts. You wouldn't happen to know where I could get my hands on a master cylinder for a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit?" I joked, trying not to wince at the memory of practicing this joke on Sam earlier.

She laughed this time. Her smile had done weird things to my insides, but her laugh was like a punch in the gut. Suddenly, I knew that I would do anything in my power to hear her laugh again.

“Sorry, I haven't seen any lately, but I'll keep my eyes open for you." She smiled at me with an open friendliness now, which was a marked departure from her demeanor all afternoon with the Forks kids. Just then, the brisk ocean breeze swirled around us, ruffling her hair and painting her cheeks a soft pink. She looked so enchantingly lovely that I nearly forgot to breathe

"You know Bella, Jacob?" interrupted the snooty blonde that Quil had tried to chat up earlier.

"We've sort of known each other since I was born," I cut in, smiling at her. I tried not to let it go to my head when she nodded in agreement with a smile.

"How nice," the blonde said, clearly meaning anything but that. I looked carefully at her and then back at Bella, sensing the tension between them. I guess the arrival of a new girl in town had ruffled some feathers. It must be over a boy. As far as I could tell, that was the main reason why women didn't get along.

“Bella," she called again, watching Bella intently, "I was just saying to Tyler that it was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn't anyone think to invite them?"

Sam looked up quickly then. "You mean Dr. Carlisle Cullen's family?"

"Yes, do you know them?" she responded with a condescending sneer.

"The Cullens don't come here," Sam replied abruptly. He caught my eye as he said it, but I looked away. I could never understand what the deal was with the Cullens. The elders of the tribe hated them because of this old trumped up legend - one that sounded about as real as the tooth fairy. Even my dad, one of the most fair-minded people that I knew, didn't like the Cullens either. It was just strange.

I turned to see Bella staring at Sam. It was clear that she hadn't missed the territorial edge in his voice either. Wanting to distract her from dwelling on it, I jumped in, "So is Forks driving you insane yet?"

"Oh, I'd say that's an understatement." She said turning away with a half smile half grimace. She seemed to pause for a moment, and then she turned back with a completely different smile on her face. A blindingly radiant full-wattage smile that completely fogged up my brain. "Do you want to walk down the beach with me?"

If I didn't know better, I would have thought she was flirting with me. Trying not to get my hopes up, I agreed readily. We walked north towards the cliffs.

"So you’re what, sixteen?" she asked.

Ridiculously flattered, I felt my face grow warm and then mentally cursed myself, which of course just made me blush more. "I just turned fifteen."

"Really? I would have thought you were older."

"I'm tall for my age," I explained trying not to sound too boastful.

"Do you come up to Forks much?" she asked with a coy smile.

"Not too much. But when I get my car finished I can go up as much as I want,” I replied eagerly. “Well, after I get my license,” I amended as I remembered that she was Charlie's daughter and he wouldn't condone her driving around with someone without a license. Damnit. That would be another year. I had my permit – we got them at 15 on the rez – but we could only drive chaperoned by a licensed driver and I didn’t exactly want to bring Billy with me on a date. Not that she and I were going on a date or anything anytime soon. I had to stop getting carried away.

"Who was that other boy Lauren was talking to? He seemed a little old to be hanging out with us," she abruptly changed topics but her smile was as radiant as ever.

"That's Sam — he's nineteen.”

"What was that he was saying about the doctor's family?"

I looked away, not sure how to respond. Deciding to go with the half-truth, I replied, "The Cullens? Oh, they're not supposed to come onto the reservation."

"Why not??

I bit my lip wryly. "I'm not supposed to say anything about that."

"Oh, I won't tell anyone, I'm just curious," she said with another one of those smiles that went straight to my head and the battle was lost. Plus, what did it matter? Charlie was practically family, so that meant she was too. And I never understood why the elders felt so strongly about keeping our tribal legends a secret anyways. Some of our stories were actually pretty cool. Making up my mind, I turned to her with a smile.

"Do you like scary stories?" I asked, trying to sound mysterious without verging into cheesy horror movie territory.

"I love them.” She grinned eagerly, her eyes filling with excitement and interest. I was a goner. I strolled over and sat down on a big white driftwood log as I tried to remember all of the components of the stories. I didn't want to leave anything out.

"Do you know any of our old stories, about where we came from — the Quileutes, I mean?"

"Not really," she admitted apologetically.

"Well, there are lots of legends, some of them claiming to date back to the Flood —supposedly, the ancient Quileutes tied their canoes to the tops of the tallest trees on the mountain to survive like Noah and the ark." I rolled my eyes a little at that. "Another legend claims that we descended from wolves — and that the wolves are our brothers still. It's against tribal law to kill them. Then there are the stories about the cold ones." I paused for effect.

"The cold ones?" She sat down next to me, but had turned so that she could face me fully and I could see the confusion written across her face.

"Yes. There are stories of the cold ones as old as the wolf legends, and some much more recent. According to legend, my own great-grandfather knew some of them. He was the one who made the treaty that kept them off our land." I definitely rolled my eyes now. When these stories were told at the tribal meetings, this was the point at which everyone turned to look at Billy and me.

"Your great-grandfather?" she prompted me to continue.

"He was a tribal elder, like my father. You see, the cold ones are the natural enemies of the wolf—well, not the wolf, really, but the wolves that turn into men, like our ancestors. You would call them werewolves." I raised my eyebrow expecting her to see fear in her eyes, but she had virtually no reaction. I guess she was tougher than she appeared to be.

"Werewolves have enemies?" she pressed on.

"Only one," I corrected. Her face was so easy to read. She was clearly struggling to process the story. To make it easier on her, I continued. "So you see, the cold ones are traditionally our enemies. But this pack that came to our territory during my great-grandfather's time was different. They didn't hunt the way others of their kind did — they weren't supposed to be dangerous to the tribe. So my great-grandfather made a truce with them. If they would promise to stay off our lands, we wouldn't expose them to the pale-faces."

I winked at her then before I could think. I hoped it wasn’t dorky, but she barely seemed to notice as she was fully absorbed in trying to make sense of the story.

"If they weren't dangerous, then why… ?"

"There's always a risk for humans to be around the cold ones, even if they're civilized like this clan was. You never know when they might get too hungry to resist." I was laying it on pretty thick, but she seemed to respond to it.

"What do you mean, 'civilized'?"

"They claimed that they didn't hunt humans. They supposedly were somehow able to prey on animals instead."

"So how does it fit in with the Cullens? Are they like the cold ones your great grandfather met?" She clamped her lips together, mulling over what I just said.

I paused for dramatic effect. And also because this was the part of the story when things went from your run-of-the mill scary story to just downright absurd. I hope she wouldn't start laughing.

"No. They are the same ones."

She caught her breath but her eyes were still puzzled as they raked over my face.

"There are more of them now, a new female and a new male, but the rest are the same. In my great-grandfather's time they already knew of the leader, Carlisle. He'd been here and gone before your people had even arrived." I stopped with a bitter smile, it seemed strange speaking ill of the kindly doctor. I didn’t know much about him, but I knew that Charlie and the folks in Forks loved him.

"And what are they? What are the cold ones?" she asked eagerly, unconsciously reaching out to touch my arm. Despite the lightness and coolness of her hand, her touch burned straight through my jacket and I could feel the shape of her hand imprinted onto my arm.

I raised my eyebrow as I steadied my voice for the punchline. "Blood drinkers. Your people call them vampires."

She turned abruptly with her arms folded around her, but not before I saw the fear, disbelief, and strangely enough - comprehension – flit through her eyes. But there was no sign of the condescension or ridicule that I had feared. Suddenly uncomfortable that I had said too much, I tried to lighten the mood.

"You have goose bumps," I teased lightly.

"You're a good storyteller," she complimented without turning to look back at me.

"Pretty crazy stuff, though, isn't it? No wonder my dad doesn't want us to talk about it to anyone.”

She continued to stare out at the sea. "Don't worry, I won't give you away." She mumbled softly, her voice barely a whisper above the wind.

"I guess I just violated the treaty," I ventured, laughing to make sure she knew that it was a joke.

"I'll take it to the grave," she promised and then she shivered. I wondered if it the cold or something else.

"Seriously, though, don't say anything to Charlie. He was pretty mad at my dad when he heard that some of us weren't going to the hospital since Dr. Cullen started working there."

"I won't, of course not,” she responded automatically, barely seeming to register that I was still there.

Concerned suddenly that maybe she did think this was all just ridiculous small-town stuff, I asked. "So do you think we're a bunch of superstitious natives or what?"

She turned finally to look at me with a smile, but there was something hesitant now about the smile. "No. I think you're very good at telling scary stories, though. I still have goose bumps, see?" She pulled up the sleeve of her jacket to show me proof.

"Cool." I figured I'd let it drop. Billy would be unhappy that I had told anyone, even if it was just Charlie's daughter. Plus I wasn't sure of how to interpret her reaction.

We both looked up at the sound of footsteps, as the letterman jacket guy from lunch came into view along with the peppy brown-haired girl. I figured I should learn their names at some point since they were clearly Bella's friends.

"There you are, Bella," the guy called in relief, waving his hand rapidly. He gave me the once-over with an unmistakably hostile look in his eyes.

Before I could stop myself, I asked Bella quietly, "Is that your boyfriend?"

"No, definitely not," she whispered back reassuringly, keeping her voice low as they approached us.

I was relieved. I hadn't pegged her for the jock type, but what did I know. And he had a nice car, I thought, thinking wistfully of the Suburban that I had seen in the parking lot. I looked at her cautiously trying to gauge the situation before my brain run amuck with the possibilities. She had definitely been flirting with me before when she suggested that we go for a walk, but now, she seemed completely distracted and detached, despite her warm smiles.

"So when I get my license…"I began hopefully. I was channeling Quil’s guts here in pressing the issue.

"You should come see me in Forks. We could hang out sometime,” she replied immediately with an unmistakably genuine smile.

I beamed. Maybe I was overanalyzing things. The jock had reached us now. He had stopped appraising me. Clearly, he didn't think I posed any competition because he ignored me and turned to Bella.

"Where have you been?" he asked slightly grumpily.

"Jacob was just telling me some local stories," Bella responded with an affectionate smile at me. "It was really interesting."

My hopes rose. She was definitely trying to use me to warn off this guy. Now if only I could figure out if I was just a handy prop or something more than that.

"Well," he said looking back and forth at the two of us speculatively. "We're packing up — it looks like it's going to rain soon."

I looked up, surprised to see ominous-looking rain clouds rolling in off the ocean. The afternoon had been the brightest few hours of a long winter, but I guess it wasn't surprising that the clouds were back. They always came back to La Push at some point.

"Okay, I'm coming." Bella got up, almost tripping over her feet in the process, as she turned to me.

"It was nice to see you again," I said, emphasizing the again for the jock's benefit.

"It really was. Next time Charlie comes down to see Billy, I'll come, too," she promised.

"That would be cool." And I'd definitely make sure to bug Billy about getting Charlie over to visit ASAP.

"And thanks,” she added as she turned to follow the others back to the parking lot.

Confused for a moment about what she was thanking me for, I watched as they made their way back to the cars. Was she thanking me for telling her those stories? And if so, why? It seemed like I had answered some question for her – there was that strange look of comprehension dawning in her eyes when I had told her about the cold ones . But I couldn't figure out why she would even care about our crazy legends. Unless ... my mind wandering back on the conversation ... it was the Cullens that she was interested in learning about.

I frowned. I had never understood the tribe's prejudice against them. Dr. Cullen seemed perfectly nice, albeit far too young, rich, and good-looking to be as good of a doctor as they said he was. I mean, the man worked at a hospital for crying out loud! Surrounded by bleeding humans all the time. If he were a vampire - if such things existed - he had to be the most controlled and compassionate vampire in the world! I had always secretly wondered if those crazy farfetched stories had been elaborated out of jealousy. Not that I would ever say that to Billy.

But that must be it. Bella must have met the Cullen kids at school and become curious about them. That was natural. I wondered uneasily if it was a guy that she was curious to learn more about. I didn’t know how I could compete with the rich, gorgeous son of a doctor. Not that I was even in the race, I reminded myself harshly. She was a junior and I was a freshman. She was way out of my league. Light-years out of my league. We weren’t even remotely in the same universe of leagues.

I was an idiot for even hoping. Dream on, buddy. Just because she smiled a lot at me did NOT mean that she was interested in me. I repeated this to myself over and over again as I started walking back towards Quil and the others. But I couldn’t stop smiling.

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